LOS ANGELES — Patrick Swayze taught a spry, young Colt Prattes it was cool for men to dance.

In all fairness, Prattes wasn’t the only aspiring dancer to draw inspiration from Swayze’s effortless charisma and slick moves. But unlike the others, he now stands in the footsteps of Swayze in a way no other performer has.

Back in the ’90s, Prattes would spend weekends at his father’s cabin in middle-of-nowhere Georgia, left to explore the wilderness and watch whatever came on TV — which usually meant settling in with his stepmother for the umpteenth cable broadcast of a little movie called “Dirty Dancing.”

“Even if the story wasn’t as incredible as it is, even if the dancing wasn’t incredible, Patrick Swayze is in it,” Prattes said firmly. “Of course, all Southern moms are obsessed with this movie.”

When it came time to pursue dance himself, a high school-aged Prattes, still in the deep south, said his friends were quick to call into question his masculinity. But with a little nudge from his stepmom, he was reminded the infinitely talented Swayze never let perception stop him.

“That changed everything in my mind about what it meant to be a guy who danced,” he said. “The way he danced wasn’t feminine, he wasn’t feminine and that was something that, at that time, still mattered to me.”

With Swayze indelibly tied to Prattes’ dance origin story, it’s a bit of kismet the now-30-year-old professional dancer and singer made his major film debut in a screen role made famous by his idol — the rough and tumble, yet tender and talented Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing.”

For the full story Prattes and the new North Carolina-filmed “Dirty Dancing,” head over to the StarNews.